Letter: Racial slur in Reader Forum

Friday

Mar 17, 2017 at 6:43 PM

Gale and Dennis McClain

It was with considerable surprise and disgust that we read “War requires extreme measures” in the March 14 Reader Forum. While disagreeing with the author's justification for our nation’s mistreatment of Japanese Americans in World War II, we do respect the author’s right to express her opinion.

However, we feel the Journal Star editor should draw the line at publishing articles that use racial slurs. The term used by the author for "Japanese" is offensive and is no more appropriate than other, more widely avoided racial and ethnic slurs.

We realize this may be a matter of unintentional ignorance rather than knowingly offensive behavior. Many years ago, this term was considered by some to be an appropriate abbreviation for “Japanese.” However, as stated in Wikipedia, since World War II it is generally regarded as an ethnic slur among Japanese minority populations. Japanese Americans in particular have come to find this term extremely offensive, even when used as an abbreviation.

So we encourage the Journal Star to use this as both an educational and improvement opportunity. Readers expect reasonable screening of submitted editorials for racial and ethnic slurs that are extremely inappropriate and blatantly offensive. If an author does not agree to the deletion of any such slur, their article should not be published.